- Hello, welcome to a special Q and A recording of "Limbo",
one of the 50 official selection titles
at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival.
I'm Robyn Citizen,
the senior manager of festival programming
and I'm thrilled to be here with filmmaker Ben Sharrock
and actor Amir El-Masry who plays Omar in the film.
Thanks for joining me today.
- Thanks for having us.
- Yeah, and Ben, you're calling from Scotland
and Amir, you're calling from London, correct?
- I'm actually in San Sebastian
in the north- - Oh, San Sebastian.
of Spain at the moment, yeah, yeah.
- So I just wanna give a little recap of the film.
Our viewers will have seen the film,
but I just want to remind them that "Limbo" follows Omar
from Syria and his encounters with his neighbors
in this remote Scottish island
and the other asylum seekers that he lives with,
Farhad, Abedi, and Wasef.
So Ben, I would really like to start with you.
I wonder if we could start by talking about
where the idea for this film originated for you.
So what is your connection to the stories of refugees
from the parts of the world represented
by the characters in this film?
- Yeah, so it's really something that goes back
a long way for me.
So my undergraduate degree, which is now
a long time ago, too long ago,
too long ago for me to remember,
it started 13 years ago, was in Arabic and politics.
And I spent my third year of that living in Syria.
So this was just a year before the civil war started.
And during my time there, I obviously made lots of friends.
I played in a rugby team in Damascus,
and we went on tour to Lebanon,
and all of these sort of things.
And I came back from my time in Syria
and then I started to specialize in Middle Eastern cinema
and I ended up writing my dissertation,
or my thesis, on Arab and Muslim representations
in cinema and TV, particularly in American cinema and TV.
So that sort of like started a long time ago.
And then after that, I went to film school,
started trying to be a film director.
And as part of that, with a another project,
I spent some time with Irune, the producer,
doing some work in a refugee camp in Southern Algeria,
and we were doing a project
that was based quite specifically around the idea
of identity and identity of refugees.
That was for a short film project.
Unfortunately, that fell through
because it was a risk for us to make this film
out there at that time.
And then once everything started happening with Syria
and we were kind of entering into the refugee crisis,
I started to think about the representation of refugees
that we were witnessing in mainstream media
and in some filmic representations but,
and it sort of worked against, you know,
I starting to thinking about the friends
that I had made in Syria
and then thinking about the depictions of these people
that we were witnessing,
and I felt that there was a gap there
and there was a process of dehumanization
that was taking place.
On one side you had a sort of demonizing
of refugees and asylum seekers
and then on the other side
you had the sort of stories or imagery that, you know,
the sensationalized part of this
that was kind of causing people to pity refugees,
which is also dehumanizing.
And I felt that there was this gap in the middle
that we weren't really looking at refugees in a way
that kind of goes beyond the label of being,
that goes beyond the label of a refugee.
So I kind of really wanted to write a film about this
and look at this as a subject matter.
I think in that sense it started out to something
that was quite academic and it took a long time
for me to write it.
I had, obviously as an outsider, I had a very,
a different perspective and quite, you know,
a particular perspective on this.
And yeah, I basically went on this road
to write this script.
It was extremely difficult.
It took me probably more than a year and a half to write it.
And, you know, it was a huge amount of
obviously research involved and speaking to people
who'd been through the asylum system.
And then I ended up kind of looking at
sort of two different realities.
One of these realities is that there were groups of refugees
that were being sent to Scottish islands,
but this is very different to this film
because they already had refugee status
'cause they were part of refugee resettlement program.
And then I was looking at the situation of what was going on
in different parts of Europe, particularly in Germany
and in Scandinavian countries
where asylum seekers were being sent to remote communities
to wait for their asylum claims
and then sort of arrived at the idea of somewhere in between
that of setting up this film of a group of asylum seekers
sent to remote Scottish islands.
So that sort of the long behind the start
of making this film.
- It's a fascinating journey though.
There's so much background and research involved
in what ended up as this, you know,
really beautiful narrative on screen.
Amir, so a lot of our viewers will recognize you
from some of your recent work,
including "Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker".
- Indie, indie little film.
- (laughs) Little small low-budget work.
So what attracted you to this role in this film?
- It's the first time I've seen a story
about the refugee crisis told with not only so much heart,
but really gives a lot of ownership over those, you know,
those individuals and it's a story about an oud player.
But honestly, when I got the script from my agent
and I saw the little blurb I was like,
"Oh okay, here we go."
But when I read it, honestly, it was the first time
I've ever laughed and cried at the same time
from just reading the script.
It's a very unique and quirky and offbeat
style of storytelling,
something I've never really seen before on screen.
And I'd seen Ben's film before "Pikadero",
and so stylistically, it really does stand out
his way of filmmaking.
So yeah, I jumped on it straight away.
I was like I have to be part of this in some way.
And yeah, again, it gives full ownership
to those characters, which is something you rarely see.
You see them as just solely the victim
of those circumstances
but you don't see them as human beings, which is essential.
So yeah.
- And the comedy's really part of the humanization
in this film and it jumps out at you
from the very first scene,
which is, I think, an iconic scene in it's humor.
It's hilarious.
But kind of on that point,
we see so many documentaries and narratives
about the refugee crisis and immigration process
and so much of it is understandably quite serious
and focused on the trauma of it.
And "Limbo" really subverts that from the beginning.
But were you ever nervous about that balance
of comedy and drama and you know, how did you know
this is an appropriate time for some levity?
Or was it just trial and error?
- Yeah, no, of course.
I mean, it's a really challenging subject matter
to deal with in, you know, in any way
so to add kind of humor into mix, it was really difficult.
And I think that's why as well the writing process
took a long time and we did a lot of things
to work through that in terms of, you know,
rehearsal process with Amir, with the actors,
and then a long time in post production as well.
Looking at these things, reviewing them,
thinking how we can, you know, shift from the humor
to the drama, and so it's very challenging.
I think that it's something that sort of, you know,
fundamentally is something that I really believe in,
that it's a really interesting way
to look at serious subject matters
and look at tragedy through humor and use that as a device.
And I think that it's, you know,
I think one of the things with this film is that
it had to...
There's so much material on this.
There's so many documentaries and literary work
and then obviously all the sort of mainstream media things.
So this film to really work as a fiction film,
it had to do something very different.
It had to do something that would set it apart
from all of the other things that covered this,
the deal of this subject.
And I think that from a sort of a filmmaking perspective,
the thing with it as a subject...
I'm a filmmaker and this is something
that's important to me,
but, you know, if I was someone that could influence policy
or a lawyer or whatever, I could be more useful
to do something, you know, to work in this area.
As a filmmaker, you can only do so many things,
but one of those things is attracting attention
in a sensitive way, in an interesting way, in a careful way
to the subject matter.
So that's why it was also important to make a film
that was unexpected within this context.
- Right, and having fleshed-out characters is so important
in drawing people into the story
so they understand kind of the wider issue at hand, right?
Amir, we see you form these beautiful friendships
with these other men,
and I kind of wanna talk about your process
of working with these other actors.
So in particular, Vikash Bhai who plays Farhad
who you become very close to in the film.
And it's a wonderful performance.
And just one of my favorite characters in films
in the past few years.
So can you talk about how do you form that rapport?
It seems so authentic and rich.
- Vikash and I were lucky that we actually worked together,
we never did any scenes together
but we worked together on a different project
a few years back.
And so when it came to the chemistry reads,
as soon as I had seen his name on the thing,
I was like, "Yes, amazing."
He brings such an incredible warmth
in any room he goes into.
So that wasn't difficult in terms of forming a friendship.
I mean, we're very good friends
off the back of that as well.
So there wasn't a difficulty as such
to kind of build a rapport,
but adding layers to it and also having that responsibility
of telling the story, you know,
we had a couple of weeks rehearsal
and we'd met with people who had done a similar route
from Syria to Scotland.
And so we always had that in the back of our minds
and that we were just, you know,
we're making a film, essentially.
But yeah, no, it was honestly,
as cliche as you've probably heard this millions of times,
but you know, working with such a small team
you feel like you're living with them constantly every day
and you feel so close to everybody.
I mean, we were literally living next door for a month,
you know, so there was no escaping me Ben, basically.
Constantly, you know, I was still constantly there. (laughs)
- To add to that,
we really were on a remote Scottish island.
So we, you know, we shot the film
on a remote Scottish island.
A film had never been made there before.
So we were all really stuck there together and I think-
- (indistinct) and no reception, (laughs)
so no one could be using their phones, you know.
- Oh, what do you do? (laughs)
I, you know, we're wrapping up in a little bit,
but I do wanna ask because your first film "Pikadero",
as you mentioned, was so well received
and garnered so much critical acclaim and success,
what was the experience of making this film
with that success already under your belt?
Did you feel like you knew what you were doing,
you were an old hand or was there added pressure
because of, you know, coming out so strong
right out of the gate?
- Oh, it's very, very complicated psychological experience.
I mean "Pikadero" was made, you know,
with a very low budget
so it was essentially self-funded,
and it was made outside of the industry.
So going into this film, which was, you know,
formerly back by the U.K. industry,
it was a very different experience.
And I think that I sort of switched a lot of the time
in my head.
From early on I felt like, "No, this is my second feature."
And, and then gradually as you go through the process
you realize that there's so many things that are different
doing it in this way.
We didn't have execs.
We didn't have all of these different things,
or, you know, it's a great part of the process
having lots of these different people involved
and it really helps,
but it's very different to the experience with "Pikadero".
And then, yeah, of course,
I think it's that kind of thing of feeling like,
you know, you want to take a step forward
as a filmmaker, take a step forward in your career,
keep exploring your craft,
not just do the same thing over and over and over again.
So I think I kind of really thought a lot about
what I wanted to carry forward from "Pikadero",
what aspects of that film are sort of fundamental
to kind of my style and my voice as a filmmaker,
but then how I could sort of build on that and develop that
with this film as well.
- Well, you did it beautifully.
You made a gorgeous film and I can't wait to see what's next
from both of you.
I wanna thank you to the audience for joining us
and remind them that as an organization
still impacted by COVID we need the support of our audiences
so that we can continue to present films
to future generations
and preserve these diverse and important voices.
This film is eligible for the People's Choice Award.
Please vote for your favorite films at tiff.net/vote.
Thanks again, Amir and Ben.
- Thank you. - Thanks so much.
Thanks everyone.